Modern agricultural practices rely heavily on timely application of agricultural products such as fertilizers and chemicals. Some of these products are applied in dry form using dry product spreading equipment, and others are applied in liquid form using sprayers.
It is advantageous to mount the dry and liquid product application equipment on separate skids, that can be interchangeably mounted on the same product applicator. Such skid-mounted equipment is typically large in size and heavy, weighing as much as several thousand pounds. Lifting the skid-mounted equipment into place typically requires the use of some sort of crane or lifting arrangement.
The equipment-carrying skid must be precisely aligned on the frame of the applicator to properly interface with hydraulic and electrical connections, and mounting hardware that secures the skid to the frame. Also, the skid-mounted equipment must be properly positioned and secured on the applicator to properly balance the large loads of the application equipment and product on the frame of the applicator, so that the applicator can safely operate while travelling over uneven terrain, ruts, ditches and the like, during application of the agricultural product.
In the past, skid-mounted equipment had to be manually guided onto the frame of the applicator in such a manner that mounting holes and features were properly aligned, often while the skid was dangling from an overhead crane or lifting device. It is desirable to provide an improved apparatus and method for aligning skid-mounted application equipment onto the frame of an applicator, in a manner that is more precise and less cumbersome than in prior approaches.
The combination of heavy payloads and jarring forces imposed on the applicator during operation require that elements of a fastening system used to secure the skid to the frame must operate in a challenging environment withstanding continuously shifting shear and tensile loads. In the past, fastening systems for use in securing agricultural product application equipment to the chassis of an applicator typically resorted to bulky fasteners to provide the necessary combination of resistance to dynamic shear and tensile loading conditions, it is also highly desirable, therefore that an improved hardware system for securing equipment to an agricultural product applicator provide the necessary load-resisting properties and functionality in a form that is more compact, efficient and effective than prior hardware systems used for such applications. In particular, it is desirable that an improved hardware system be adaptable to mounting arrangements where access to the back side of mounting features, for threading nuts onto mounting bolts, for example, is difficult, or completely blocked.